photo by Erin Baiano
GMTWP Alums Mkululi Mabija and Paul Castles (both Cycle 19) were in residency at the Center for Ballet and the Arts this past January to work on their new piece The Road Between the Desert and the Ocean, an original ballet-opera with a libretto by Mkhululi Mabija and music by Paul Castles. It tells the story of Samo and Gamo, two elders lost in the deserts of the Kalahari Desert (present-day Namibia). Mabija and Castles will explore the use of ballet as the primary mode of narrative expression within a music theater piece and the dramatic storytelling possibilities of replacing text and staged action with movement and dance.
The CBA Fellowship Program invites artists and scholars to The Center to develop self-directed projects that expand the way we think about ballet’s history, practice, and performance. Fellows come from a multitude of disciplines and bring a breadth of experience to the residency. They must pursue projects related to dance, but they are not required to be experts in ballet. The Fellowship provides time for fellows to do their work and a place to share their expertise and thinking with each other.